Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Act IV Halloween - Waning of the Event
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
The Mad King's Clocktower ...
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Now I have no real urge to do it over and over (though anyone who completes it has to get really good at it and it is fun - like an old school very hard platformer) but you can do this with MF gear on for lots of Trick or Treat bags after you loot the Mad King's Slippers the first time.
It's < 3 minutes a run (or you'll already have failed) so in that sense it's not bad farming. It's certainly novel.
A better alternative though is the dungeon. Get 4 like minded individuals and you can run this real fast with a chance at exotics in the chest at the end. It takes no more than 15 or 20 minutes once you get in the groove.
I hear rumour's that there's also a chance at really rare items - the Halloween items. So that's definitely worth doing if you've lots of time and have already made all the Halloween investments you care to.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Act III Halloween Event - What You Should Buy
Friday, October 26, 2012
Halloween Candy Corn Investment
I feel like if I don't bail on my investment of nearly 5,000 candy corn now I'm going to lose out? Am I being paranoid?
I thought these were good questions and my comment response got a bit long winded so I started drafting up this post.There are absolutely tons on the market for 10 copper and I'm not sure the desirability there. I'm praying they jump up after Halloween but I'm quite sceptical.
There are a few things I want to look at here. First, will candy corn be desirable after the holidays? Second, will supply decrease? Finally, are there other things worth investing in? Or how much is too much?
Let's answer the easiest first - supply will definitely decrease. There will be no more candy corn entering the market. That we know of - and this is an important thing to bear in mind.
Arenanet may make them accessible through some forge recipe or something of that nature (I highly doubt this but never rule out possibilities completely).
Will candy corn prove to be desirable after Halloween? If supply decreases but there's no demand then it's not that great an investment right? I think candy corn will remain in demand. Check out this gw2db list of recipes that require candy corn.
I think demand will drop just after Halloween because there are themed event uses for the corn. Like trading 50 corn to the kids in Lion's Arch to get a personalised trick or treat bag and a chance at an endless halloween tonic (one example of extra Halloween candy corn uses). Look at how close the supply/orders are at the moment:
You'll lose some of that demand post event. Hard to say how much. But there'll be (as far as we can tell) no more candy corn until next halloween - that's IF arenanet bring the same material back. They more than likely will but if they don't. Boy.
I know there are dozens - probably hundreds of folks who've invested in candy corn because they believe it'll be worth something later. Of these investors, only a handful are the most patient. I'm thinking in terms of 4 months or more. That's aeons in MMO time. I have visions of corn going for a silver a piece this far down the line and though it's optimistic, it might not be unrealistic.
When you think in this time scale it's very hard to see candy corn as a poor investment. Keeping your money in gold is worse. Inflation - though Arenanet need to counter it to avoid a loss in gem revenue - will still inevitably devalue your in-game money.
Even if candy corn proves to be less desirable than predicted. Even if there's close to 1 million corn in investor's pockets now. There's still very little chance you'll be burned by holding onto corn at the current low rates.
The nervousness joey2beers feels there is entirely normal when investing - have I made the right call? Am I going to lose out? 5,000 corn at 10 copper is 5 gold. That's not a small amount of money at the moment. But when items are 10 copper and below the very worst you can do is lose 9/10th of that investment. There's a bottom limit there - a cushion. So long as it's not your total funds you'll learn and be smarter and wiser. My advice is to leave a host of orders at half that too - 5 copper. You're even better insulated.
Here's my final tip for today: develop balls of steel (and that's not aimed at joey in particular but all of us!)
Investing is never going to give you a 100% positive return. But if you bail before an investment reaches the period when you've calculated (logically) you'll start seeing good returns then you'll always be sitting on around the same gold total in your pot.
Share your own thoughts, I'm looking forward to them!
Thundergore
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Mad King Chests
That's not the full haul from the 23 chests but it's nearly the lot.
As you can see, it's probably not worth it to buy keys for chests at the moment. You could buy these materials at a much better rate directly. Even with this secondary method of gaining items and another chance at a weapon skin the chests feel a bit disappointing. Hopefully it doesn't change our gem > gold holiday even flipping strategy.
If you are like me and experimented with the chests then this is definitely advisable (just don't use your best boosts that can be handy for levelling alts or gaining more karma).
Thundergore
PS be sure and check out this week's Shoddycast post if you haven't already. Farming never sleeps!
Gold Guru - Plinx Meta Event Farming
Hello everyone! We hope everyone is having a great time with the Halloween festivities. When you're done learning about the Mad King and collecting pieces of candy corn, you may want to get some farming done. And just in time, TK from the ShoddyCast has brought you yet another edition of the Farmer's Almanac.
This week, TK tackles the large meta event chain referred to simply as Plinx. The name refers to the NPC you are helping throughout the events named Plinx, of course. He's an Asura that you will be defending and escorting through 4 different events.
The first event you will be defending Plinx as he builds his H.A.Z.M.A.T suit throughout a series of waves consisting of undead hylek and other goodies. These guys will spawn relatively grouped together so they are easier to tag than the latter events.
After Plinx adorns his might suit, you will then escort him to a helicopter landing zone. This is the lengthy part of the event chain. Risen will spawn in a line along the walls towards the north. Since they are in a line, it's a bit harder to tag all the mobs before they go down.
When Plinx finally reaches the landing zone, the next event starts up immediately. In a PvE version capture the point, you will only progress through the event when no risen are within the blue lines. Once the indicator bar is full, the event is done.
Less then a minute after the landing zone is cleared, Plinx will need to be escorted to Caer Shadowfain as he brings supplies from the helicopter to the outpost. This is a pretty quick event since Plinx will not stop to fight mobs as his hands are full of supplies.
On top of the 4 events in the chain, there will probably be a couple other events going on in the same area. In the embedded video, you will see that TK ran into a champion broodmother as well as a champion undead abomination. With the 6 events combined, TK received over 100,000 experience, over 2,000 Karma and about 17 silver. Once mob spawn locations are know, we can see this making more money but we doubt it would be more than the previous Curse Shore farm we explained. But if you're working for your legendary weapon, you may want to consider this location because the Karma and experience is very nice.
Now drop your candy, get out there and do some farming!
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This week, TK tackles the large meta event chain referred to simply as Plinx. The name refers to the NPC you are helping throughout the events named Plinx, of course. He's an Asura that you will be defending and escorting through 4 different events.
The first event you will be defending Plinx as he builds his H.A.Z.M.A.T suit throughout a series of waves consisting of undead hylek and other goodies. These guys will spawn relatively grouped together so they are easier to tag than the latter events.
After Plinx adorns his might suit, you will then escort him to a helicopter landing zone. This is the lengthy part of the event chain. Risen will spawn in a line along the walls towards the north. Since they are in a line, it's a bit harder to tag all the mobs before they go down.
When Plinx finally reaches the landing zone, the next event starts up immediately. In a PvE version capture the point, you will only progress through the event when no risen are within the blue lines. Once the indicator bar is full, the event is done.
Less then a minute after the landing zone is cleared, Plinx will need to be escorted to Caer Shadowfain as he brings supplies from the helicopter to the outpost. This is a pretty quick event since Plinx will not stop to fight mobs as his hands are full of supplies.
On top of the 4 events in the chain, there will probably be a couple other events going on in the same area. In the embedded video, you will see that TK ran into a champion broodmother as well as a champion undead abomination. With the 6 events combined, TK received over 100,000 experience, over 2,000 Karma and about 17 silver. Once mob spawn locations are know, we can see this making more money but we doubt it would be more than the previous Curse Shore farm we explained. But if you're working for your legendary weapon, you may want to consider this location because the Karma and experience is very nice.
Now drop your candy, get out there and do some farming!
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Holiday Black Lion Chests
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Hey, everyone. As mentioned earlier in this thread, the team has taken on board your feedback and concerns.
We’d recommend not throwing away or selling the items you’ve been receiving in the Black Lion Chests, as we’ll be providing ways in which those items can be used to obtain Halloween-related items…
We’ll have further updates when they become available.Thank you again for all your feedback.Rejoice! Gems will most likely increase even more when new events roll round (if this model is copied to future events). If X chests ALWAYS gets you enough to exchange for an event themed skin then gem flipping could well become a super means of doubling your gold. We shall see.
BUT there is something any of you lucky enough to be holding a weapon (to sell) needs to do now:
Get rid of it on the TP before prices are reduced!
I imagine anyone who spent ~ $20 on gems is going to be able to get 1 x skin in this exchange. That of course could be way off the actual requirements for a skin via black lion chest item exchange but nevertheless halloween skins are going down in price.
Keep the comments coming! They've been great the past few days. I'm going to finish up my work assigned for today and get in game and see what's changing/moving in the economy.
Thundergore
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Halloween Food - Revealed
Monday, October 22, 2012
Halloween Event Brainstorm Post
Sunday, October 21, 2012
The Power Of Alts When Farming
Friday, October 19, 2012
Holiday Event Speculation
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Gold Guru - Cursed Shore and Jute Scrap Farming
Hello everybody! First off, we'd like to thank the new owners of GW2Riches for allowing us to continue posting our information on the site. Hopefully, with their ideas and our continued support, this site will continue to grow and supply everyone with a wealth of knowledge to help make everyone's Guild Wars 2 experiences more enjoyable.
TK is keeping up with our Farmer's Almanac series by bringing you the ever popular Cursed Shore farming spot which is located mainly at Penitents and Shelter's Gate waypoints. If you're already familiar with CS farming then maybe you'd like to try some jute scrap farming. It's very simple to farm and even a new character can try it.
The Cursed Shore's main events at the previously mentioned waypoints are both "defense events" during which mobs will spawn in waves. Penitents' event has invulnerable mobs that cannot be tagged until they reach a point just before the gate you're defending. The good thing about this is that you know exactly where you need to cast your AoE abilities for mob tagging. The best thing to do is start casting them a second or two before they reach that point. Oh, and a quick tip: BEWARE OF THE EXPLODING CHICKENS!
The second point at Shelter's Gate has spider mobs as well as green ghoul thingies. Sadly, these can be attacked at any point after they spawn so you have to be quick enough to tag them before others kill them. If you're having trouble tagging the mobs that spawn to the left, try running down the steps to the right where spiders, including the veteran spider, spawn and tag them there.
A little bonus about these two spots is that there are several NPCs to sell all your drops to as well as purchase salvage kits. As for what to do with the rare items that drop, that's entirely up to you. Keep in mind that there's a variable chance(based on type of salvage kit) of 1-3 Globs of Ectoplasm from them, but you can also sell the item itself on the Trading Post for around 14 silver currently. I, personally, have been placing my rare items on the TP. Again, entirely up to you.
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SUBSCRIBE| Join The Forums|
TK is keeping up with our Farmer's Almanac series by bringing you the ever popular Cursed Shore farming spot which is located mainly at Penitents and Shelter's Gate waypoints. If you're already familiar with CS farming then maybe you'd like to try some jute scrap farming. It's very simple to farm and even a new character can try it.
The Cursed Shore's main events at the previously mentioned waypoints are both "defense events" during which mobs will spawn in waves. Penitents' event has invulnerable mobs that cannot be tagged until they reach a point just before the gate you're defending. The good thing about this is that you know exactly where you need to cast your AoE abilities for mob tagging. The best thing to do is start casting them a second or two before they reach that point. Oh, and a quick tip: BEWARE OF THE EXPLODING CHICKENS!
The second point at Shelter's Gate has spider mobs as well as green ghoul thingies. Sadly, these can be attacked at any point after they spawn so you have to be quick enough to tag them before others kill them. If you're having trouble tagging the mobs that spawn to the left, try running down the steps to the right where spiders, including the veteran spider, spawn and tag them there.
A little bonus about these two spots is that there are several NPCs to sell all your drops to as well as purchase salvage kits. As for what to do with the rare items that drop, that's entirely up to you. Keep in mind that there's a variable chance(based on type of salvage kit) of 1-3 Globs of Ectoplasm from them, but you can also sell the item itself on the Trading Post for around 14 silver currently. I, personally, have been placing my rare items on the TP. Again, entirely up to you.
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► Friend us on TGN Social
► Questions? Comments? Leave a comment below or message the show on YouTube.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Investing in Crafting Materials
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
What's The Recipe For Success?
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I found these two! |
These are awesome. For those who don't know the buff is +10 experience from kills, 30% magic find and 40% increased gold from monsters.
But what's happening with the trading post price? For those of you that didn't need to read the link here's what it reveals at the time I made this post:
- Average Trading Post Cost Of Mats:522
- Average offer on Trading Post: 221
- Average profit on Trading Post: -31
- There's never been more of an incentive in a popular MMO to level crafting (you gain experience - 10 levels for 1 - 400 each crafting skill).
- You can also level all 8 if you choose - and if you can afford it.
Looking again at cooking, these reasons have some knock on effects:
- Characters choosing crafting as a level booster will buy as many of the materials required to make food buffs as they can afford (increasing the demand/cost for materials).
- There's little demand/great abundance of crafted goods made while levelling crafting.
- Higher levelling recipes often require many of the same ingredients as higher recipes (older cooking guides require lots of vanilla beans because they were bulk bought from karma vendors).
- Demand for higher recipes remains constant; cost of materials increases due to players levelling alts.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Guild Wars 2 Guides - Why Even Bother Buying One?
It's Friday and before I go and enter the land of intoxication I had a memory of conversations me and Craig had a few weeks ago.
It was around the whole Guild Wars 2 guide concept and just how pointless it is…
I got to Google and began searching around and seeing what utter brilliance there was out there (I'm being very sarcastic, by brilliance I mean crap).
I just can't get my head around the idea why anyone would buy a guild wars 2 guide and I'll break down my reasoning here now…
1) The main point and flaw is they cost money and your basically paying for something whether it be $37, $27 or whatever for information you could probably find for free…. in fact you can definitely find for free elsewhere
That's about it really lol
But seriously for that $27 or $37 that you blow on a guide you could assign a similar amount of money to buying in game gems which you can then convert to gold.
Those who buy a guide to learn how to level quickly - well that's just pointless. Spend the same kind of money on gems, get gold, buy crafting materials, use your karma to buy recipes and before you know it you can fire up the levels pretty quickly.
Leveling fast in guild wars 2 is pretty easy.
Then you have those who are looking to generate gold quicker. Again making gold is pretty damn easy. Following the route I just mentioned you can then craft items to sell at a profit on the trading house and make a ton of gold quickly that way. You will break even in no time with the right decision making.
Like I said spending money on a guide is pointless when you can spend that money in game and get all the benefits plus more that a guide wouldn't give you.
I know I'm quite brief on these points but in the next couple of weeks we will show you the whole process in motion via a video.
And of course for those who don't want to buy gems or aren’t part of a large guild we will also provide more free methods and which might not be as quick but are probably more fun.
Just my thoughts and please if you have the urge to buy a guild wars 2 guide book then let us know which one you’re thinking of. We will give you all you need on this site or point you in the right direction. Free is better :-)
I think I hear an Asahi (sweet, sweet beer) calling my name
As always feel free to show some love by clicking on of the social button below
Chris
It was around the whole Guild Wars 2 guide concept and just how pointless it is…
I got to Google and began searching around and seeing what utter brilliance there was out there (I'm being very sarcastic, by brilliance I mean crap).
I just can't get my head around the idea why anyone would buy a guild wars 2 guide and I'll break down my reasoning here now…
1) The main point and flaw is they cost money and your basically paying for something whether it be $37, $27 or whatever for information you could probably find for free…. in fact you can definitely find for free elsewhere
That's about it really lol
But seriously for that $27 or $37 that you blow on a guide you could assign a similar amount of money to buying in game gems which you can then convert to gold.
Those who buy a guide to learn how to level quickly - well that's just pointless. Spend the same kind of money on gems, get gold, buy crafting materials, use your karma to buy recipes and before you know it you can fire up the levels pretty quickly.
Leveling fast in guild wars 2 is pretty easy.
Then you have those who are looking to generate gold quicker. Again making gold is pretty damn easy. Following the route I just mentioned you can then craft items to sell at a profit on the trading house and make a ton of gold quickly that way. You will break even in no time with the right decision making.
Like I said spending money on a guide is pointless when you can spend that money in game and get all the benefits plus more that a guide wouldn't give you.
I know I'm quite brief on these points but in the next couple of weeks we will show you the whole process in motion via a video.
And of course for those who don't want to buy gems or aren’t part of a large guild we will also provide more free methods and which might not be as quick but are probably more fun.
Just my thoughts and please if you have the urge to buy a guild wars 2 guide book then let us know which one you’re thinking of. We will give you all you need on this site or point you in the right direction. Free is better :-)
I think I hear an Asahi (sweet, sweet beer) calling my name
As always feel free to show some love by clicking on of the social button below
Chris
Look Good and Save Money In Guild Wars 2
I’m Craig (in-game name ‘Thundergore’ in more games
than I care to mention) and I love GW2.
There are tons of cool things to do in this game and, as
time goes on, I hope to write about pretty much every aspect that interests
folks.
One of the things that interests me most of all, though, is
the in-game economy. I love earning in-game currency - from gil in FF VII to gold
in D3 and WoW or whatever (not that I play those last too much at the moment) –
having enough gold to buy whatever I want is pretty awesome.
This post isn’t going to into specific tips much – there’ll
be time enough for that later – but I do want to look at two very specific,
very interesting elements of the guild wars 2 economy. Things that I think are
cool and that more people should be aware of.
First of all, this game is all about looks. Stats mean very
little. This is really interesting – it’s something that you could only really
compare to something like the real life fashion market. Other MMO’s build value based largely on an
item’s function, GW2 builds value based largely on an item’s looks.
Here's an example. Take a look at what happened with Anura. Have you seen
this sceptre? It’s awesome! It looks like this:
And it looks even better when you equip it instead of preview (but I don't dig sceptres so I lean towards selling).
Now not many people knew it looked like this until a few
days ago when someone made a reddit post about how awesome it looked and how
they got it for 2g. Once the look was known the Anura price hike commenced! It's sitting at about 8-9g now - well above it's previous average and it's not likely to drop until people stop liking casting spells with frogs on sticks (hint: they never will).
What’s interesting about all this vanity is that the normal methods of
predicting supply and demand are turned a little on their head – not completely
(lots of things in GW2 still work like a normal MMO) but enough to make things
interesting.
If you’re the first person to see how awesome something
looks, and you know how to get it cheaply at the current market value it’s not
a bad idea to risk some money on LOOKS. People even try to game the system on popular
sites like reddit and I’ve seen a few cons pan out over there – be careful if
you haven’t verified it yourself in-game!
Second thing I wanted to raise in this post is the
subject of gems.
Look at the madness around Diablo 3. I mean, the game is a
bit disappointing in terms of what it could have been but I gotta admit I was
psyched about the real money aspect. In the end I made a good deal more than my
investment in the game back (nothing compared to the bots mind you) but it was
quite an experience and I look forward to more like it in future.
Now Guild Wars 2 has a real life cash shop too but, as
people rightly point out, there’s no ‘out’. Gems can flow to gold which can
flow back to gems but there’s no ‘Anet balance’. No means to cash out to
paypal.
But this isn’t the whole story...
I want to quote something I said near the top of the post:
"having
enough gold to buy whatever I want is pretty awesome.”
This is pretty much the entire drive behind MMO economies.
You’re not saving for your kids educations. You’re not saving for a nice
holiday. You’re gathering gold so that whenever you want something, you can
have it. It’s a kind of freedom.
Some people may be really good at exercising that freedom in-game
but not out of it (hey, we could ALL use more real $ couldn’t we?) and this is
when a cash shop pisses people off. They’re successful in-game but are limited
by their lack of real resources. You can’t get the big awesome hat of
awesomeness because it’s not available in-game and cynical game company X knows
you want it. They designed it to be wanted.
Arena net (like Valve with TF2) have given us a way around
this by giving you the opportunity to get all the cool looking things in-game: we can use gold to buy gems and use those gems just as if we bought them with
real cash.
What this means is we save
real money while simultaneously enjoying the game to the maximum (silly hats, silly
outfits, bank space, transmutation stones, you name it).
It’s like buying anything else. You buy things to get functionality or enjoyment from them
and most don't hand you money back. But if you are careful when you purchase
(buy it for the lowest amount possible) the savings compared to the
dearer alternatives are a net gain. You reduce what you sacrificed (opportunity cost) and that's a very real financial gain.
It doesn’t pay out like Diablo 3 but Guild Wars 2 offers you
a chance to save money by playing the gold economy well and it makes so much sense
to do so and I can’t wait to talk about it more.
It would be awesome if you could use one of the social buttons below to like or +1 this post if you liked what you read. It all helps in building our little community :-)
Craig
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